in any such bureau, precinct, or police station. Policewomen so detailed shall be returned to duty in the woman's bureau upon termination of the emergency. (c) Nothing contained in this section shall be construed to limit the authority of any officer or member of the Metropolitan police force not connected with the woman's bureau, except with respect to women and children who are in the custody of the police.

SEC. 5. The women who are officers and members of the Metropolitan police force at the time of the passage of this act shall be continued in their respective grades as officers and members of the woman's bureau provided for in this act, except that (1) the lieutenant and sergeant in office at the time of the passage of this act shall, as director and assistant director, respectively, of the woman's bureau, hold the rank and receive the pay of an assistant superintendent and a captain, respectively, of the Metropolitan police force, and (2) the privates serving at the time of the passage of this act in the capacity of case supervisor and patrol supervisor, respectively, shall no longer be known as privates but shall be continued as case supervisor and patrol supervisor, respectively, as herein provided.

SEC. 6. The Commissioners of the District of Columbia are authorized to appoint for duty in the woman's bureau, in accordance with the provisions of the act entitled "An act to regulate and improve the civil service of the United States," approved January 16, 1883, as amended, and the rules and regulations made in pursuance thereof, in the same manner as members of the classified civil service of the United States, one office secretary, six stenographers, three typists, and such other assistants as may be provided for by the Congress from time to time. The compensation of such employees shall be fixed in accordance with the classification act of 1923.

Mr. RATHBONE. The committee will come to order. We have under consideration H. R. 7848, a bill to establish a woman's bureau in the Metropolitan police department of the District of Columbia. This bill has had a hearing already. I will ask if there are any further witnesses who desire to be heard on behalf of the bill. Mrs. VAN WINKLE. Mrs. Berliner wishes to be heard.

STATEMENT OF MRS. JENNIE O. BERLINER

Mrs. BERLINER. As a member of the bar and of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia and of the National Women's Party, I would like to indorse the bill very heartily. I have known of this work for some time. I think they are doing an unusually fine piece of work.

Recently the Women's City Club had a hearing on this bill and indorsed it. At that meeting several woman physicians were present and spoke of their experience along this line. Miss Pearl McCall, assistant United States attorney, gave her experiences. The tout ensemble was that this bureau was an absolute necessity, and it was indorsed most heartily.

Mr. RATHBONE. You have examined this bill yourself?

Mrs. BERLINER. I have.

Mr. RATHBONE. Are you satisfied with the number of employees or attachés provided by this bill? Do you think that it is a requisite or proper number, the number that they ought to have?

Mrs. BERLINER. The increase?

Mr. RATHBONE. Yes. What is your opinion?

Mrs. BERLINER. Absolutely. I think that at the present time they are very much handicapped by not having a sufficient force.

Mr. RATHBONE. Are you speaking from personal knowledge, or observation, or from what you have heard from other people?

Mrs. BERLINER. From both; and considering the wave of crime that the District of Columbia is experiencing just now with youths

from 12 to 14 years of age and upward, I think they need all the support that they can get.

Mr. RATHBONE. Would any member of the committee like to ask some questions?

Mr. GIBSON. Is it your opinion from your study and observation that this bureau is doing a good work?

Mrs. BERLINER. Absolutely. The other day, for instance. a case was brought to my attention of a boy about 11 or 12 years old being taken out of a moving-picture house during school hours and questioned, and he was escorted home; his parents thought he was at school.

Mr. GIBSON. You are acquainted with the method of handling cases employed by the woman's bureau?

Mrs. BERLINER. To a certain extent; yes.

Mr. GIBSON. Do you know that their method of handling juvenile offenders is to avoid taking them into court and giving the offender a record?

Mrs. BERLINER. Well, this boy was not taken into court

Mr. GIBSON. I know, but don't you think their method of taking these offenders home and turning them over to their parents is to be preferred to any method of calling them into court?

Mrs. BERLINER. Surely. It does not give the child a stigma.

Mr. RATHBONE. Are there any further questions of the witness? Mr. HAMMER. Do you know how many policewomen deputies there are?

Mrs. BERLINER. At the present time?

Mr. HAMMER. Yes.

Mrs. BERLINER. If I am not mistaken, there are about 20. Isn't that so, Mrs. Van Winkle?

Mrs. VAN WINKLE. Yes.

Mr. HAMMER. Do you know any of them personally?

Mrs. BERLINER. I know about who are members.

Mr. HAMMER. Do you know the duties that they actually perform? Mrs. BERLINER. Yes. One of them told me some very harrowing experiences that she had had with some young girls. We were together at lunch.

Mr. HAMMER. Do they make arrests? That is what I want to know. Or do they go around as good Samaritans, or sisters?

Mrs. BERLINER. I think that in some instances there are arrests made.

Mr. HAMMER. Do they actually make the arrests themselves? Mrs. BERLINER. Yes. I am quite sure that they do. Don't they? Mrs. VAN WINKLE. Yes.

Mrs. BERLINER. I think that in this instance I was told that they did.

Mr. HAMMER. Do you know what the number of arrests that they made is and what the results of the arrests were-what became of those cases?

Mrs. BERLINER. Well, Lieutenant Van Winkle could give you that better than I could.

Mr. HAMMER. When Mrs. Van Winkle gets on the stand we can get that information from her.

Mr. RATHBONE. I am told that there is a prospective witness here who is able to give that data, that information.

Mr. HAMMER. All right. That is all.

Mr. RATHBONE. Have you made any study or have you any information with regard to the work in other States or countries of similar bureaus such as this?

Mrs. BERLINER. No, because I am practically a new member of the bar and, while I have always been much interested in the subject, I am interested in the District of Columbia in particular, it being my native place.

Mr. RATHBONE. I am requested to ask Mrs. Virginia White Speel to speak.

STATEMENT OF MRS. VIRGINIA WHITE SPEEL, WASHINGTON, D. C., PRESIDENT OF THE DISTRICT FEDERATION OF THE LEAGUE OF REPUBLICAN WOMEN

Mr. RATHBONE. Have you examined this bill, Mrs. Speel? Mrs. SPEEL. Yes, sir. I have examined it in detail ever since the bill was drawn.

Mr. RATHBONE. We would be glad to have your views concerning it.

Mrs. SPEEL. For many, many years, long before this bill, Mr. Chairman, had been presented to the Congress or before I ever knew or heard of Mrs. Van Winkle, I have been very much in favor of women on the police force. They are a necessity. Anyone who has done a social service work anywhere realizes that for a woman to do official work, she must be officially authorized. Anyone who has studied social questions exhaustively or practiced social service work, I think, if he is fair-minded and generous, will realize that mere temporary authority is not sufficient. A police force with women as its members should be authorized and stabilized by law so that it could not be done away with at the will or the pleasure of any temporary group of men in authority.

As to your question, Mr. Chairman, as to the number of women on the police force: I think that in this period of collective bargaining to ask for a hundred is not asking for too many. If we ask for a hundred, we may get 30. A hundred women on the permanent force is the standard that they are seeking.

Mr. RATHBONE. Is it your judgment that 30 would be about the proper number which should be finally assigned to this bureau?

Mrs. SPEEL. No; Mr. Chairman. This is a city-I am not just aware of the latest claims that we are making here-but it is very close to 500,000 people. In this day and age I do not think that 30 policewomen would be a sufficient number for a city of 500,000 people.

Mr. RATHBONE. What do you think, after having gone through this process of collective bargaining, should be the final number, the final residuum?

Mrs. SPEEL. Well, Mr. Chairman, that is a very pertinent question and you are rather pushing me into a corner as to that. I think that a hundred would be a goodly number, but if you can not get that number, 65, I would say, would be a good number.

Mr. RATHBONE. Would you be satisfied with 65 as a fair and adequate number to carry on properly the work of this bureau? Mrs. SPEEL. I think it would be a fair number; yes, sir.

Mr. RATHBONE. Have you made any study or have you any information as to the workings of similar bureaus in any other States or countries?

Mrs. SPEEL. I have, of my own State of Pennsylvania; yes, sir. Mr. RATHBONE. Is that a separate and distinct department or bureau there?

Mrs. SPEEL. That is what they are striving to get.

Mr. RATHBONE. They haven't got that yet?

Mrs. SPEEL. No.

Mr. RATHBONE. In the situation in Pennsylvania, the requirements of the law are about the same as they are now in the District of Columbia with regard to this bureau, aren't they?

Mrs. SPEEL. There are in a number of cases in smaller cities such as Scranton and Wilkes-Barre-they are being largely supported by the women's clubs. In the city of New York they are being paid by the city commissioners there.

Mrs. John Hamme, who is a resident of that city, told me only a few weeks ago that they were waiting eagerly for this bill to be passed, because on the success of this bill will depend their action. Mr. RATHBONE. In other words, you are of the opinion that what is done in the United States Capital sets more or less of a precedent for the rest of the country, and you think that such a law, if passed here, would be followed by legislation along similar lines in your own State of Pennsylvania, which would meet the approval of these women?

Mrs. SPEEL. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. RATHBONE. Do you know of any movement or is there any foundation for apprehension at the present time that this bureau will be done away with if the law is not changed?

Mrs. SPEEL. Yes, sir. There is apprehension, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. RATHBONE. Is that a general apprehension?

Mrs. SPEEL. Yes, sir. I think it is.

Mr. RATHBONE. What is it founded upon?

Mrs. SPEEL. Upon the instability and lack of authorization of the present_women's police bureau.

Mr. RATHBONE. Does any gentleman of the committee wish to ask any questions?

Mr. HAMMER. I would like to know the lady's idea about what women police should do-what their duties should be.

Mrs. SPEEL. Well, Mr. Congressman, I can answer that by saying what they are doing. They are safeguarding the women and children-all children, boys and girls of the District of Columbia. I think that they are doing it very well indeed.

Mr. HAMMER. Safeguarding them? What do you mean? You see, we have various agencies for welfare work here now.

Mrs. SPEEL. I appreciate that.

Mr. HAMMER. Do you want the women police to take over the welfare work of the city?

Mrs. SPEEL. Oh, no; I want them to supplement the welfare work. Mr. HAMMER. To make arrests?

Mrs. SPEEL. Yes; because they are policewomen and they are clothed with the authority of the law.

Mr. HAMMER. To engage in those activities which men police do among a certain class of our population, such as women and chil

dren, when called upon to do so or to do so when their attention is called to it?

Mrs. SPEEL. My idea is that they should be clad with the same authority that the policemen are.

Mr. HAMMER. And perform the functions

Mrs. SPEEL. And perform the functions of the police. To be just exactly what they are asked to be-police members, and on an equal plane with all the police officers.

Mr. HAMMER. And they ought to try to conduct themselves in an orderly way, as other police officers are required to do?

Mrs. SPEEL. Absolutely.

Mr. HAMMER. And to receive instructions and to be advised as to what their duties are-what they should do and what they should not do just as other policemen are?

Mr. SPEEL. Absolutely.

Mr. HAMMER. Thank you. That is what I wanted to know.
Mr. RATHBONE. Is it your idea that they should be armed?

Mrs. SPEEL. Well, with what we know as a long billy or club, yes. I don't think we ought to have white-gloved policewoman, as I see some people think.

In your State of Illinois, Mr. Chairman, I have just a little information concerning the desirability or the real actual need. The desire of the women of the State of Illinois is to have a highly established police force.

Mr. GILBERT. In the chairman's own city they really need a sort of naval and army force.

Mrs. SPEEL. Yes, they need a standing army, I think.

Mr. HAMMER. Everybody does welfare work. If he is a good citizen

Mrs. SPEEL. That is, we hope so?

Mr. HAMMER. But I wanted to ask if welfare work was a part of. the duties of policewomen in Washington.

Mrs. SPEEL. Yes. I think it is, in a general way. I can say it is.. But there are other duties and other functions that the generalwelfare bodies perform that I think would not be done away with if we authorized the existence of policewomen.

Mr. RATHBONE. I am asked to have Miss Milliken speak next.

STATEMENT OF MISS RHODA MILLIKEN, SERGEANT IN THE WOMAN'S BUREAU, METROPOLITAN POLICE, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. RATHBONE. What is your official position, if any, at the present time?

Miss MILLIKEN. I am sergeant in the women's bureau, Metropolitan police.

Mr. RATHBONE. Have you examined this bill and have you some definite views regarding the same?

Miss MILLIKEN. Yes.

Mr. RATHBONE. We would be glad to hear from you regarding them.

Miss MILLIKEN. The bill, in the first place, is for the purpose of legalizing the women's bureau. That seems to us a very necessary thing.